The Haunting

At the stroke of midnight, she sallied forth.

White saree -- Check

Lit candle -- Check

Hair untied -- Check

The street was deserted, and she was feeling more than a little nervous.


It was not her first time haunting. But the last three times, she had failed to do her bit, and had become the laughing stock of the community. At least this time, she hoped to make a good impression.


This was after all what was expected of her. If the others came to know of the uneasiness that tormented her non-existent heart, they'd laugh louder. There'd be no getting away from the embarrassment.


She had watched the others at work. But in the other life, the one before this state, she had been a well-brought up girl from a good family. Laughing raucously in people's faces, opening the mouth wide to reveal fangs that dripped with blood -- these were not things she approved of. Or enjoyed doing. She longed for release but it was not to be, Merciful release had eluded her so far.


Suddenly the stillness of the night was pierced by some loud and off-key singing. A dark figure, emerging from the distance, zigzagged his way across the street. The figure came closer and she recognised him. He worked in some office downtown, What he earned during the week he blew up on the weekend. He had a wife and three children back home, who dreaded his return home.


Startled, she could barely get her teeth to stop chattering. She quickly ducked behind a tree, only to remember seconds after hiding that she was invisible. Still, it was a wise move. Drunkards can often see what the sober cannot. and she didn't want to frighten this hapless unfortunate needlessly.


She knew the signs and could predict the way they would lead him. Before long, he'd be borrowing, begging, even stealing to fuel his drinking habit. He needed something to jolt him, frighten him out of his wits so he'd never touch the stuff again.


Should she do it? She thought of that other life. It had been lived only for herself. She alone was the intended beneficiary of every single act she had committed, of every word she had spoken.


She wondered now. Was that why Death had not brought peace? Was it because she had been selfish and had thought only of herself? Would it help if she did one good deed for someone else?


She hesitated, but for a moment.. Then appeared in front of the man, laughing that raucous laugh she so hated.


The man beheld the spirit, fear and disbelief fighting for control over his face, and then he began to run. For a man who a few seconds alone had struggled to walk, he managed to canter along quite briskly. 


She learned later that he never drank again. The haunting had sobered him up with lasting effect.


The news increased her standing within the community. Not that it mattered anymore. She had decided to devote the rest of her life, this in-between life, to doing more such stuff.


She smiled to herself. This was going to be fun.




This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

That first step

I met my friend, L, at lunch yesterday. L and her husband, are moving to Australia later this month. This is not their first trip to Australia. The couple have had a month-long vacation in Sydney and have enjoyed themselves thoroughly.

I asked L if she was excited about the impending move. She replied that she was excited, but that this time around there was an element of fear, of uncertainty, of discomfort, at the thought of rebuilding their lives from scratch. From finding a job to finding a house, getting settled into their new routine, adjusting to new neighbours, a land where almost everyone was a stranger, learning the ins and outs of their new home-city, learning to fit in -- all these were fraught with peril.

So much of our lives depend on things being the way they have always been, of being able to predict just how things will go, that it must be unsettling to have to relearn everything all over again.

Her uncertainties reminded me that it isn't children alone who are wary of taking those first few steps. As a mother of two young children under the age of 5, I remember well how nervous both of them were about putting their best foot forward. They would walk by holding the furniture or the wall, but it was a while before they felt confident enough to risk falling just for the joy of walking.

My husband and I, and their paternal grandparents, would urge them on, tell them to start walking, that we were close at hand, that we would never let them fall. But I knew from one look at La Niña's face, and later on at El Niño's face when it was his turn, that it wasn't so easy to believe us.

I remember getting frustrated at such times that they were not willing to listen to me.

Yesterday after L mentioned her fears to me, I realised the fear of taking that first step. I've felt that way too. So often. So very often.

I've been ready with my short stories for years, but I don't have the courage to put them together and approach a publisher. I can't take those first few steps. I'm afraid of rejection, of being told that my writing, about which I feel as a mother feels for her young, isn't good enough. I'm afraid of being told that the world has no use for me or my writing. It makes better sense to hide my writing, to only risk exposing some of it to the feeble recognition, and relative obscurity and, dare I say it -- safety, that this blog provides.

The conversation with L also helped me realise how slow I have been at taking the first step. How I have been wrong in having high expectations of my children when I appear to be incapable of taking my own advice.

But children are far quicker on the uptake than we are. They quickly realise that the fear of falling is nothing compared to the joy of being able to walk. And as simply as that, one day, when you are busy doing something else, they will take those first steps. And having taken them, they will walk all day, as if their little minds realise that they have wasted a lot of time and there is much ground that needs to be covered.

Maybe it is time I learned something from my kids about the importance of taking that first step, no matter how difficult or frightening it seems.

(This post has been written in response to the prompt, First Steps, on GBE 2.)

The Best Days of My Life

You can get the Cynthia Rodrigues out of Xavier's, but you cannot get the Xavier's out of Cynthia Rodrigues. Years after leaving college, this is one truth that stands firm. You only have to mention the name of the college for me to get all nostalgic and race into flashback mode.

Post-class X exams, when I made known my desire to join St Xavier's College, Bombay, I was warned by all and sundry that it was a very degenerate place. Drugs were freely snorted on the campus and in the classrooms. The atmosphere was overly permissive with couples smooching everywhere and indulging in scandalous and sinful acts. This was the gist of everyone's dire pronouncements against the college. I doubt any of the many people who warned me against it had actually stepped foot inside the campus. It was a case of a bad reputation getting ahead faster.


I don't know why I had insisted on joining Xavier's. No one we knew had gone to Xavier's at that time. Subsequently many have, but none at that time. I knew nothing about Xavier's, of its fine traditions or its glorious history. I had not even seen pictures of the college.


The name had fired my imagination, that is all. To fight for my right to go to Xavier's, I resorted to every melodramatic trick I could think of. I refused to eat, even showing a saintly aversion when Mum tried to tempt me by cooking my favourite dishes. I announced grandly that it was Xavier's or nothing. If I couldn't go to Xavier's, I would give up my education. Fortunately, my parents were too sensible to be taken in by these stupid threats. After approximately a week of holding on to a hardline stance, my parents, having made an informed decision, agreed to let me join Xavier's.


And that was when the chilling import of what I had earned first hit me. What if I didn't like it? What if it really was degenerate? How could I possibly save face?


The admission form had been picked up by my cousins. We lived in Thane and Xavier's was in VT (now CST). For a Bombayite, whose thinking often follows the linear tracks of the local railways, this was the furthest halt on the Central Railway line. Perhaps that had subconsciously influenced me. I don't know. But the idea of starting something new, something that was physically at the opposite pole from the point at which I was then must have appealed at some level.


When I first went to college with my dad for the admission process, I was prepared to be surprised. This was after all a whole new world, far removed from the sedate convent-school outlook that was mine. As we stepped into the driveway leading to the college, I was transported. My heart beat faster. I had never seen any building quite as beautiful as this. Then when we walked through the commonplace lobby and then into the resplendent Gothic beauty of the quadrangle, every stone block illuminated in the sunlight, I was entranced. I knew I had to be a part of it.


Everywhere I looked, youngsters milled about. I desperately hoped none of the scandalous stuff was happening in plain view. I didn't want my parents to change their mind about admitting me to Xavier's. But there was nothing to worry about.


There was excitement in full force, as many hopefuls like me looked forward to being a part of this world. I remember praying hard. A girl standing next to me in the admission queue asked me my name. When I told her, she said, "Oh, don't worry, of course, you'll get in. This is a Catholic institution. They'll take you in. They are duty bound to take all Catholics in."


Hard as I was praying to be admitted in, I remember wishing that she would turn out to be wrong. Something told me that this was a fine institution, one of the finest. Nay, let me say it. The finest. But I wanted them to take me in because I was intelligent and creative and honest and sensible and had much to gain from here, much to learn, much that I would make my own and then someday, years hence, take out into the big wide world. I wanted them to take me in because I deserved to be in. I wanted the Sorting Hat of Xavier's to think me worthy.

Over the next five, and they were the best years of my life, I learned to take great pride in being called a Xavierite. To a large extent, Xavier's made me the woman I am today. Amid its hallowed halls, I learned that it was as important to question as it was to seek answers. I learned that I was stronger than I thought I was. I learned to get out of my cocoon, and seek out the best in others.

I also learned that the negative reputation that the college had earned was entirely undeserved.

Today St Xavier's College is an autonomous institution. But even then, despite being affiliated to the University of Bombay, there was a breath of freedom that pervaded the place. There was a yearning for education that inspired you to cherish learning for learning's sake, that could not be restrained by any syllabus or curriculum. Most professors encouraged us to call them by their first names, reasoning that we were all on the road to learning from one another. It was a refreshing stance, one that enabled us to see them as friends, to be more understanding of each other.

Laughter resounded within those ancient walls. Nothing was so serious that it couldn't withstand being laughed at. Nothing so lighthearted that it couldn't teach us a solid truth.
There were so many treasures within. The reference library where I first learned to imagine that Heaven had to be a library, the biggest of its kind. The lending library with its tall rows of books that I would eye greedily, even ravenously, wondering if I would ever be able to read them all.


Incidentally, the lending library was where I received my first taste of Western classical music. Every afternoon, they would play classics from Beethoven, Mozart and Handel, among others. Having grown up on the heady music of the BeeGees, Abba, Boney M and Kenny Rogers (that was all the music my Dad had), it was my first initiation into Western classical music.


Those were the best days of my life.




There was another reason that made Xavier's very special. Three more reasons. I made three friends who continue to form a very important part of my life. Angela, Liz, Lo and I were inseparable. It was a friendship that was destined to happen. I always believe that the greatest friendships of our lives are brought to us by some sort of a cosmic radar. An overarching force that skims through thousands of people and then, against all odds, out of the blue, brings to you the people that are the sisters you never had.


We used to call ourselves the GAX (the Great Amigos of Xavier's). I didn't know any Spanish then, so it was only much later that I learned that since we were girls, we should call ourselves amigas. But the original name stuck.


Together we laughed each time one of us was bitter and disappointed. And we cried until our sides ached at nothing at all.


At our third year farewell party, I cried as if my heart was breaking and would never mend again. Friends and classmates tried to comfort me. They promised that we would never lose touch. We would call and write unfailingly (pre-Facebook era). But I was weeping for something more.


I was weeping at having to leave a college that had become home for the five years we had been there. I was weeping for a college that was more than an institution, it was our life.



Thankfully, memories are doorways and they can take us back to our past faster than we can imagine.


This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

Daddy's Day In

Image Courtesy: Morguefile

How on earth does she do it? Fool that I am, I questioned her capability in managing the household and keeping the brats in line. How could I have known it was going to be like this?


I manage the sharks at work, face the barrage of deadlines that keep beating down on me, and I thought mine was the most difficult job of all.

Now I see it. By the time I would return from work at the hour when the primetime serials on TV had begun to wrap up for the day, the boys would be sleeping, I would tiptoe into their room, watch their angelic faces deep in the throes of sleep, their chests gently heaving up and down in a rhythmic motion. And I would shush her up when she tried to tell me about how hard her day had been, how she’d spent all day cleaning their mess, when she wasn’t shouting at them to clean up themselves, how she feared them more when they were quiet because then it meant that they were cooking up another hare-brained scheme designed to frazzle their mother.

And then one day when the whining got to me, I yelled back at her. I told her she was incompetent. That’s what she was. She ought to see the kind of challenges I countered at work on a daily basis. Her voice dipped low and she reminded me that she had been tackling those very challenges at the same office where we had met and that she had given up her job five years ago and stayed home to look after the boys.

I hadn’t seen it as a sacrifice back then, and I told her so. One thing led to another and before I knew it, I had signed up to look after the kids for just ONE day.

When I woke up, breakfast was on the stovetop and there was a note too. “It’s Showtime. I’ll be at Mum’s.”

The house was silent, and fool that I am (but that you already know), I rubbed my hands with glee and told myself, this was going to be fun. The boys and I were in for some serious male bonding. They’d realize how much more fun their Dad was compared to their nagging Mom.

I heard the boys talking and rushed to their room. I opened the door and felt something soft and mushy hit me in the face. I heard laughter and all plans for a fun time vanished. I chased them to the bathroom, and fell hard on the soapy floor.

The day went by in a mad whirl. With me at the receiving end mostly.

They asked me where Mom was. She had a better grip on things, they said.

Mercifully, lunch was in the oven.

I sat at the kitchen table, eyes covered, the phone nestled between my head and neck. I needed her soon. Or else I’d burst.

“Come home, honey, I’m sorry.”

This post has been written for the Write Tribe prompt.

It's raining Sevens

I've always been drawn to the number Seven.

I am not surprised, when I read about the importance of Seven in cultures around the world.

As a Christian, I try to follow Jesus' teachings that I must forgive Seventy times Seven. In truth, that means you forgive as often as someone hurts you, since you can't really go through life keeping a memoranda of how many times someone has hurt you -- in word or deed, consciously or unconsciously.

Motivational gurus advise us: Fall Seven times, Stand up Eight.

There are Seven days in the week.

There are Seven wonders of the world, although a child can count far more.

Snow White had Seven dwarves.

There were Seven brides for Seven brothers.

Highly effective people supposedly have Seven habits in common.

There are Seven colours in the rainbow.

Do Re Mi Fa So Lah Ti are the Seven notes in the Western musical scale. Just as Sa Re Ga Ma Paa Dha Ni are the Seven notes in the Hindustani and Carnatic musical scales.

There are Seven deadly sins. 

Enid Blyton had the Secret Seven.

James Bond answers to 007.

And to cap it all, I got married on the Seventh day of the Seventh month of the Seventh year of this millennium.

And so when Corinne Rodrigues of The Write Tribe announced this prompt, 7x7x7x7, in which we were supposed to pick the Seventh book out of our bookshelf, then go to the Seventh page, pick the Seventh line on that page, and write Seven lines of poetry or prose on that line, I just had to go for it.

So here is the Seventh book on my bookshelf. Father Brown Stories by GK Chesterton.

The Seventh line is "There is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss."

And here is my response to the prompt:

There is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss.

Our jaded sight may fail to heed the marvels of the world. To see something anew, you must see with brand new eyes.

At every moment, something comes alive and something dies.

Miracles in plain sight, and yet somehow in disguise.

Life times drift by, we gaze too long at the lies.

And all along dead-ends lead to new paths, and even as you groan about answers blown miles away and gone amiss.

They show up on your doorstep, ah! The bliss.

You're Only Loony Once

“YOLO,” the young man yelled, waking his fellow-students sleeping in the hostel, before plunging the syringe into the fleshy folds of his upper arm. He didn’t know that the word was his last.

“YOLO,” the dean stretched the word around his tongue the way his students chewed gum. But he couldn’t abide the taste and spat it out in disgust.

“It means You Only Live Once,” the young professor of psychology volunteered. The most popular faculty member, he felt duty-bound to express the students’ view.

“I know what it means,” the dean snarled. “It means living life fully, using every ounce of talent God has given you, making a difference, striving for your dreams, so that death arrives to find you without regret. These fools have let it degenerate into an excuse for trying anything that their idle minds come up with. For them, it's You're Only Loony Once, and then it's the end. No more chances.”

“That’s true,” said the professor of mathematics. “This is the third YOLO death in four months. The students are quick to declare their dead classmate a martyr, inspiring others to do equally foolish things. Drinking, doing drugs, sleeping around, fast driving in the name of YOLO.”

The dean nodded. “I’ve always hated acronyms for this reason. Where is the beauty embedded in that truth, You only live once? Where is the call to action? The very phrase has been twisted into candy drops that can be swallowed without thinking.”

“That’s how these kids are,” said the professor of sociology, who prided himself on understanding student behaviour. “They are always in a hurry, and they like to save time by making an acronym out of everything.”

“Don’t call them kids,” snorted the professor of philosophy. “They are old enough to vote, marry and drive. Why aren’t they old enough to think responsibly for themselves?”

“That’s right,” said the dean. “We need to take the grotesque YOLO out of their vocabulary, and remind them that they only live once, and that youth is transient. They must do something worthwhile with their lives, use their college years fruitfully so that decades hence, they can look back on this time with satisfaction.”

“Shall we ban the use of YOLO?” The popular professor was keen to redeem himself in the eyes of the dean. The idea was met with silence. Snubbed, the professor shut up.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” said the professor of English Literature. “Make YOLO and others of its kind part of our own vocabularies. The lure of these phrases lies in the fact that they are frowned upon by the faculty and administration, fuelling the students’ illusions that they are anti-Establishment rebels. If we appear to adopt these mantras, they will need no more inducement to abandon them.”

Soon the faculty adopted YOLO as if it gave meaning to their life. Before the month was up, the students lost interest in YOLO. It wasn’t cool anymore. How could it be if the fuddy-duddies raved about it?

And that is how YOLO lost its hold over the students.

 

This story was written for the Write Tribe - Prompt 3.

The Marked Man



Image Courtesy: Fotolia

I looked up and down the street, and swore. Every house looked exactly alike. The same blue lintel flanked the sides of the same brown doors with the same black latticework. Except for that cactus plant outside this door, which might have been a great marker if only this were the house Ali Baba lived in.


The Sardar had been livid ever since we’d returned to the cave to find some of the jewels missing and a wimp of a man, scared out of his wits, cowering behind one of the casks. The Sardar wasted no time in getting his story and Cassim was quick to blab about his brother, Ali Baba, in exchange for his life.

But the Sardar was not in a forgiving mood. Security had been breached. I smirked inwardly, resisting the temptation to say, I told you so, to the Sardar. I had told him last year that passwords, even oral ones, must be alphanumeric and at least 30-odd characters long, but no. He had his heart set on “Open Sesame” and “Close Sesame.”

The Sardar slashed Cassim’s throat in one swoop. As the man fell, the emeralds and rubies that he had stuffed into the pockets of his tunic rolled out. But it was too soon to exhale with relief.

The Sardar sent five of us to the surrounding villages to find out if someone had suddenly become rich overnight. To my bad luck, it was the village assigned to me that yielded Ali Baba. I say bad luck because in our kind of work, safety lies in numbers. You are safe when you work as part of a team. On your own, the slightest mistake could cost you not only your job but also your life. We are the forty thieves but not the same forty thieves.

Ali Baba’s house is two doors to the left of this one. I considered marking it with a chalk, but I can’t risk any kids drawing the same mark on other houses. It would be a tactical error.

What to do? Whatever it is must be done fast. The man is marked. If only it were as easy to mark his house.

It is noon now and everyone is indoors. But any movement, someone coming out to see if the clothes on the line have dried, or someone going to fetch water, could get me into serious trouble. Should I pick up that cactus and place it near the door of Ali Baba? But what if the rightful owner finds it and takes it back to his home between now and tonight? I cannot afford to make mistakes.

And then it came to me.

The Sardar would likely do this job alone, with me to guide him. He would not risk the sound of forty horses’ hooves trampling through the cobbled streets. What if I led him but not to Ali Baba’s house? Of course, “thirty-nine thieves” does not have the same ring to it, but what the heck? Ali Baba can meet his Maker later.

It’s time for a coronation.

This story was written for the Write Tribe - Prompt 2.

The Do-gooder



Picture courtesy: Morguefile

I stood in the lobby of the Emergency ward of the hospital. Just a few moments ago there was a wild commotion about this place. Now there was a stillness. Did that mean it was all over? My heart beat in trepidation.

A nurse looked out through the door. Her uniform was crumpled, and there was a tired look in her eyes. “You brought the hit-and-run patient in? He’s responded well to surgery, but the danger is not yet over. Let’s hope for the best.”

I smiled my thanks. She didn’t need to tell me to hope for the best. I’d been agonising over the outcome all day. Ever since I had lifted his bleeding body and put it in the backseat of my truck. He had been cruising a little below the speed limit and someone had knocked him from behind. His car turned turtle, once or twice, I don’t know. It threshed and shuddered and then fell silent, like a huge balloon suddenly deflated. All around cars were honking madly and in the ensuing confusion, the disciplined four-lane traffic went haywire. Some cars sped away, skipping nimbly out of the mess in the nick of time.

I could have gone too, but I didn’t. There was so much confusion. No one was thinking straight. I volunteered to drive him to the hospital.

He was losing blood. I tried not to think of the upholstery. I could tell he was sinking.

Fortunately it was a good hospital, and the attendants were ready when I charged into the driveway. Someone must have called to let them know we were coming. He was wheeled in. I waited, trying to calm the storm within me.

The hours passed. The clock on the wall behind the reception desk kept time. The 14-inch TV was turned on mute. I gave up trying to decipher the happenings onscreen. By this time, the police must have found his papers in the glove compartment of the mangled car. They’d know his identity – if the papers were genuine. I doubted it. He didn’t look like he owned the car. A stolen one maybe. But the blood that was spilled was his for sure.

The telephone on the reception desk let out a shrill cry. Answering the phone, the elderly receptionist looked at me. I strained my ears to hear what she was saying. She put the phone down, and slowly turned to me, clearly relishing the fact that I was waiting with bated breath. Some people are clearly starved for real-life drama.

She said, “The patient you brought in has succumbed to his injuries.” She added, “I’m sorry,” matter-of-factly, which meant she wasn’t sorry in the least.

That was fine with me. I wasn’t about to grieve either.

The phone in my pocket rang, showing an unknown caller. “You’re a sorry excuse for a hit-man. The deal’s off.” the voice barked.

“No, it’s not,” I smiled. “He’s dead now.”

 

(This story was written for the Write Tribe - Prompt 1)